Sunday, February 24, 2013

Electric Cars: A Matter of Managing Spatial Scales

The UK government has recently announced that it will fund
up to 75% of the costs of installing charging points for electric vehicles in
garages and driveways. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21503532).
The estimated cost of installing a power point capable of charging two cars is
about £10,000 with local authorities expected to contribute £2,500 towards this
cost. The report says that the government estimates that it will cost between
£1,000 and £1,500 to install charging points for drivers with off-street
parking for power points in their garages and driveways. Rapid chargers will
cost about £45,000 each. The government believes that 75% of costs is an
appropriate level of incentive for individual drivers and local authorities to
invest in such technology.

This may seem like a great idea for improving everyone’s
environmental quality but, as a Commons Transport Select Committee has already
asked, is this the best way to use government funds. The incentive only works
if people buy electric cars, can afford the additional costs of installing such
power points and only if the burden on the electricity generating system allows
recharging (a big surge of power demand in domestic supply overnight might not
be a good idea).Maybe installing power
points maybe an answer but it is not convincing that the right question is
being asked.

The question that should be asked is why aren’t people buying
electric cars? Ron Adner used the EV (electric vehicle) as an example in his
recent book ‘The Wide Lens’ as an example of having to undertake ecosystem
style thinking about innovations and their economic development or acceptance.
Reducing the issues of EVs to one key component, Adner argues that the need to
buy an expensive, cumbersome, lengthy to recharge and soon obsolete battery is
an important impediment to purchase. Adner uses the example of Better Place to
illustrate how rethinking the ecosystem can result in a novel solution to the
battery issue. Better Place envisages a system where the battery is replaced
when it runs low on power through a network of battery replacement stations.
The operation is a quick change over of a discharged fro a charged battery with
the car driver having as much ownership over the battery as a driver does over
the petrol in a petrol station (http://www.betterplace.com/).
This system transfers ownership of the battery from the driver to the battery
exchange company. Better Place can now deal with, problems of obsolete
batteries and charging requirements in bulk with all the benefits that brings.

The scheme was launched in Israel and Denmark that the firm
believed would be ideal test sites as their relatively small size meant that a
network of battery replacement stations could be established at relatively low
initial investment costs. Unfortunately, extension of this novel way of
thinking about EVs has not been a success in the US or Australia and the
company has had to move out of these countries (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/better-place-proponent-of-e-v-battery-swapping-pulls-out-of-u-s-and-australia/).
This does not necessarily mean that the idea is wrong just that all parts of
the ecosystem need to be in place before successful acceptance can be achieved.
The business model relies upon all potential actors in the network or ecosystem
agreeing to run the battery replacement system as each actor benefits from
participation in the network. Central to this set of relationships is the
involvement of major car manufacturers who sign up to making electric cars
compatible with the robotic battery replacement stations. Only Renualt had
agreed to this. Without this key set of actors in place, the network or
ecosystem had no chance of success.

The relative success of the battery changing strategy in
Israel and Denmark and its failure in the US and Australia highlight the need
to think about the ecosystem approach advocated by Adner and the importance of
scale issues within it. Establishing a network of battery-changing stations requires
investment but without this network the concept and practice of
battery-changing would not catch on. The practice is only advantageous if there
is a demand and supply of electric cars that in turn depends upon the
‘solution’ of the battery issue. Use of an electric car is a very personal
issue with the decision to buy or not located in the individual and their
specific context. Just this simplified description crosses and defines a range
of scales all of which need to be aligned to enable the network or ecosystem to
work. If none of these actors across the scales in this simple network can see
an advantage to themselves in taking the plunge into electric cars then there
is no way the system will even develop.

The micro-scale of the individual needs to be explored and
barriers to adoption of the electric car clearly stated and translated into
ecosystem or network terms. Likewise, the scale of the individual firm
operating a battery-changing centre needs to be understood and linked to the
other actors so it is to their advantage to adopt the new technology. Car
manufacturers operate at a global, macro scale but with supposed sensitivity to
local contexts and are driven by economic needs at these scales. Add the
complexity provided by the competitive, established network of petrol stations,
cars and owners, all forming an aggressive ecosystem at all the same scales
into which the electric car network is trying to meddle and you have an idea of
the complex cross-scale issues that need to be addressed. Maybe the government
should spend funds on trying to resolve how to manage these multiple spatial
scales of actors and networks to produce an economically viable,
self-sustaining ecosystem for the electric car rather than putting the
responsibility on the individual car owners to respond in the way the
government wish to a few incentives at a single scale.

About Me

I am an academic geographer, madly interested in my subject - stone decay and all things environmental - as well as being a long-time fan of science fiction (or science fantasy, never sure what the difference really is).